Audience Questions

Audience QuestionsHour 1

Jorge wants to get a wireless doorbell. Suggestions? Leo says that he uses Ring, and they are also a sponsor. There's also Skybell. But these smart internet enabled doorbells represent a security risk because they're connected to the internet (called Internet of Things) and often they aren't updated. So if someone can break into his network, they may be able to break into his house or system. With that warning, Leo says that Ring does a great job. Google's Nest is very secure as well.

Dave is running an old computer on XP and Verizon conned him into installing their "in home agent," which was a home dialer. Now he can't get rid of all of it. Leo says that software was unnecessary. Back in the early days of DSL, Verizon made that required and it's some of the worst software ever. Leo recommends ShouldIRemoveIt.com, which they promise can remove that software automatically. Leo says that he's never used it, but it looks to be an automatic removal tool that can do the job. Another uninstaller is the one at revouninstaller.com. Logan in the chatroom has used ShouldIRemoveIt and says it works well.

Audience QuestionsHour 2

Sylvia wants to get a new computer but can't decide between a laptop and a desktop. Leo says that in general, a desktop is best for business. A laptop is for personal use. Since Sylvia does video and photo editing, she also should get Adobe's Creative Cloud. She'll also need a minimum of 16GB of RAM, but for video, 32 would be even better.

Leo also says that if she's going to spend the money, its better to spend more on a GPU (graphics processing unit) rather than the CPU. She should still get a quad core i7, though, and just spend extra on the GPU. She'll also want an SSD and Thunderbolt 3. Leo recommends Dell, but ASUS makes good ones as well. A screen with DCI P3 or SRGB standard. She'll probably spend about $2,000 when all is said and done.

Greg is locked into using an old phone because his skin is too dry to use a touch screen. Is there a smartphone that has raised keys anymore? Leo says Greg could use a standard Bluetooth keyboard with any smartphone and that would solve a lot of his problem. Leo recommends the Aerb wireless keyboard at Amazon. It has a trackpad with it, and is only the size of a game controller. The RII i28 is another one.

JR wants to know what would be the easiest way to set up a slideshow presentation that he can show on an HDTV. Leo says that many TVs have USB slots, but it depends if the software supports running photo slideshows. JR could use AirPlay with his iPhone and keep the slideshow on it. Or he can make a movie of the slideshow and the TV could play it.

Eric is looking to get a new NAS and wants to know whether he should get a Drobo or Synology? He wants everything on RAID that can be swappable. Leo says that Drobo is USB and is essentially a very large, fast USB external drive system. But for network attached storage, Leo prefers Synology. It's a computer with massive storage on his network.So it really comes down to what he'll want to use it for. Since Eric wants something to play videos and music, Leo recommends running Plex on it. Both are rather expensive, since he'll have to buy drives for them.

Drobo does have the advantage that it can use old drives and build a RAID array out of it. So he can use his old hard drives until they die. Synology will require new hard drives and Leo recommends Western Digital.

Audience QuestionsHour 3

Wally recently bought a Tesla Model X. It's a great car, but he can't get AM radio. Leo says that electric motors in the car generate too much interference, according to Tesla. But Leo doesn't buy that since the Model S has an AM radio. It also has streaming radio through the car's LTE connection and he can listen to TWiT's live stream before the radio station even gets it. It's on TuneIn. He could also connect his iPhone via Bluetooth and stream iHeartRadio.

Joseph built his own gaming PC but every once in awhile it reboots itself. Leo says it could be updating itself. But it also may be that a component isn't working well when it's cold, but when it heats up, it will work just fine. So an errant solder could be the culprit. It sounds like a hardware issue. Joseph should keep in mind that when he builds his own PC, he is his own tech support. He should check out the motherboard manufacturer and see if there's a recall.

John has noticed that there isn't spell check in Android for Gmail anymore. Leo is surprised by that, but he uses Inbox instead of Gmail and that has it. Why would Google turn off spell check in gmail? Leo says it's a setting that got turned off. John should look in his settings.

David lives in a fifth floor apartment with 100 Mbps WiFi available. He can't get it on his floor, though. What can he do? Leo says that WiFi is generally limited by distance and David is just too far away from the access point. He needs one on his floor. If he can get his own modem, that's what he should do. He could also try getting a group together to get WiFi extenders and put a few on every floor. That would help.

John has cut the cord and he's having trouble streaming live sports with an over-the-air antenna. He says that the antenna plugged into the TV is ideal, but the HDHomeRun and Tablo have issues. That points to the culprit, then. Leo says LCDs have issues with live movement and a higher refresh rate will smooth that out. John should look for a higher frame rate in his TV's settings.

Jerry has been using an app to hack a neighbor's Wifi for free WiFi. Leo says that is a violation of federal law and Jerry really shouldn't be doing that. And it probably doesn't work anyway since most wifi routers are using WPA2 these days and that's a lot harder to crack.

This Week in Tech News

Tired of the intrusion into his privacy, Leo decided to quit Facebook last night. Leo says that when Facebook users take quizes on Facebook, the quiz maker gets access to ALL your personal information, as well as the information of your friends - without THEIR consent. And Leo says Facebook refuses to do anything about it.

Even worse, while Facebook assures members that the information won't be used in violation of Facebook's privacy policy, a whistle blower from the company said that is exactly what happened with Caimbridge Analytica. When the story came out, Facebook quickly banned the company in an attempt to get ahead of the bad news. Facebook has also given users the option to delete their personal data without having to cancel their account.

But this was the last straw for Leo, and he's out of there. But should he leave Twitter and Google as well? Google is a lot harder.

This week, Leo got the Samsung Galaxy S9 and it's not only got one of the best cameras ever, but DxOMark says the screen is practically perfect in every way. Leo also says he's pleased that the fingerprint reader was finally put in the right place. But what's strange for him is that there's not much difference between the Galaxy S9 and the Note 8. Maybe a faster processor and slightly smaller, but they're practically the same.

Leo also got a new HP Envy X2, which is the first laptop to run on an ARM processor. But even then, it's still running on Windows 10S.. That means it only runs 32 bit programs and only from the Windows app store. It has 4GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, plus a microSD card slot. It also weighs a pound and a half and fantastic battery life. HP says 22 hours, which means about 11 hours in reality. But Leo says he's getting more like 15-16 hours. Amazing. And it has LTE, all you need to do is put in a Google Fi SIM and Bob's your uncle. But at $1000, it's not cheap. And Leo says it's really SLOW. Chrome is also really slow on it.
Leo's recommendation ... there's a lot to like, but he wouldn't recommend buying it.

Magic Leap has been a company that's been all hype and no action for years, despite all of the great demos they have on their website. Now the company says it's making a prototype that looks like welder's glasses for augmented reality. This means it would put virtual things on top of the real world, so you're not completely isolated like you would be with virtual reality. Magic Leap says it will release its system to developers sometime this year. It features glasses, a small Discman sized computer that can attach to your belt, and a controller.

Magic Leap just raised half a billion dollars more for this from Saudi Arabia. They got 502 million dollars in October, and have received more than 2.3 billion dollars in funding so far from a variety of investors.

With Ready Player One set to come out later this year, Leo says there are a ton of virtual reality exhibitions at the annual South by Southwest Interactive Festival this week in Austin. Leo also saw a mockup WestWorld outside of Austin. Tickets sold out in minutes.

According to a new study, the more outrageous fake news tweets you see on Twitter, the more likely it will be retweeted, while actual news only gets retweeted about 1/4 of the time. Leo says that this is driving many to give up the social media app altogether. And those who have stayed, Leo says it works as an outrage engine to rage at the machine.